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PDM Recommendations...

dbower1
1-Newbie

PDM Recommendations...

Good Morning,



We had made the the decision to go with PTC's Productpoint, but as I'm sure you're all aware, it is being retired. Full blown Windchill is more than we need.



We are a small group, 6-8 Pro/e Users. Maybe 15-20 people would be using the PDM system. Any others in the same boat as us? Would be interested to hear what others are using.



Thanks,


David

10 REPLIES 10

I know that Fawcett Design (fawcett.com) (Product design and I.D. firm) has released a free PDM program that works with any type of file for versioning and revisioning control. I downloaded the program and installed it exactly as they indicated and low and behold... the damn thing actually works. I haven't tried any serious application time yet, but all indications are that it will work just fine.

It's actually worth taking a look at.

BenLoosli
23-Emerald II
(To:dbower1)

Let's get some terms straight.

Windchill is the base code behind PDMLink, ProductPoint, ProjectLink, MPMLink, etc. It is a programming toolkit to build applications on. It requires a database (Oracle, SQLServer, SharePoint) behind it to store the data.

ProductPoint is the PTC Implementation of Windchill on a SharePoint database. It does simple CAD vaulting.
Intralink is a Windchill customization on Oracle or SQLServer that does CAD vaulting plus some workflow.
PDMLink is a Windchill customization on Oracle or SQLServer that does full PDM functionality from initial problem reports through change notification. Included in there is CAD vaulting with workflow.

ProductPoint was released to meet the needs of the small company that needed CAD vaulting. With the changes in Windchill10, PTC felt that the need for a redundent product was not in their best interest so they killed it. Intralink10 should be able to do everything that ProductPoint1 did and possibly easier. The extra workflow tools in Intralink should have some benefit, though I can see where some companies still don't need that. You can do Cad vaulting only in Intralink and even PDMlink. I worked for a company that used PDMLink for CAD vaulting only. They had no desire to do anything else with it as that was all handled by TeamCenter.

As far as cost is concerned, the hardware is about the same. You need 2 servers, database and application, though it can be done on a single server. Software costs may be a little higher as you move from ProductPoint to Intralink to PDMLink, but I don't know how much. Maintenance is always a function of the software cost as a percentage. Prices are negotiable with PTC especially in the late summer as they want to close their fiscal year with lots of good news. End of quarter sales and negotiations are also possible.


Thank you,

Ben H. Loosli
USEC, INC.

David

Try downloading and installing Pro/INTRALINK 10.0. You will find that the installation is just as simple as it was in 3.X. Oracle is imbedded and the installation gui is simple to follow. I have it running on virtual machine and the performance is surprisingly good for testing purposes. 10.0 is still at F000, so you may want to wait till the first maintenance release, but you can at least evaluate it.

Mike

David,

We were in the process of implementing Product Point but had to wait for
the 2.0 version to be released. We also found out that 2.0 was not going
to be released and our option was to move toward Windchill 10.

I agree that Windchill 10 may be improved in ease of use, but it's still
much more complicated than Product Point. I have seen Demo's and will go
to Planet PTC Live in Las Vegas to learn more. When I look at Windchill
10, I don't see the simplicity of ProductPoint at all.

We are going to learn as much as possible about Windchill 10 and see if it
can work for us. It may be an overkill but you can turn off everything
you don't need and customize the UI to only show you the things you care
about. Since it's an even switch from Product Point license to Windchill
10 (PDMLink 10), we are considering it.

Good Luck


Damián Castillo
CAD & Administration Manager
Engineering Department
Hensley Industries

Bob,

It's great to see some free PDM software available but I can't risk
something like that to run our Engineering Department. I need the support
of a large company that will back up the product and resolve issues when
they come up.

I can see if you are running a very small company of just 2 to 3 users. To
get this approved at a medium size company with 20+ users, would be
difficult.


Damián Castillo
CAD & Administration Manager
Engineering Department
Hensley Industries

Ben,

The problem is that Windchill 10 is not as easy to use as ProductPoint. I
have seen the live demo's and it's simply not as easy. Windchill 10 is
much easier to use and administer than Windchill 9 but when you compare
the dead simple UI of ProductPoint, it's not the same.

I understand you can customize Windchill 10 to only show you what you
need, but so far it seems that it will take much more training and effort
for my users to do the same thing in ProductPoint.

I am still learning about Windchill 10 and will dive into it more very
soon, but my initial impression is that Windchill 10 is not as simple as
ProductPoint. I can understand why PTC made the decision, but it's still
not fair to say that Windchill 10 will be just as easy to run as
ProductPoint.

Product Point looked just like a normal folder structure with the Revision
column added. It was so simple, that my users did not know they were
looking at ProductPoint.

I am positive that Windchill 10 will be able to do what we need it to do
and we can simply the UI as much as possible, but it's not going to be as
simple as ProductPoint.

Looking forward to Planet PTC Live to get my hands on it and learn more
about it.


Damián Castillo
CAD & Administration Manager
Engineering Department
Hensley Industries

Miguel,

From my understanding, Windchill 10 is the architecture for both PDMLink
10 and Intralink 10.

This means that Intralink 10 is nothing more than PDMLink 10 with some
features turned off. I would guess that installing and running Intralink
10 and PDMLink 10 would be just as easy. You can turn features off on
PDMLink 10 to make it only do what you need.

If this is true, I would rather install PDMLink 10 and have the option of
turning on features as needed.

I am still learning all this, so I could be way off.


Damián Castillo
CAD & Administration Manager
Engineering Department
Hensley Industries

Damian,

Not really. Installing PDMLink requires a separate installation of Oracle. So in addition to knowing how to install Oracle, you will need to buy a license for it. Pro/INTRALINK comes bundled with Oracle and no additional Oracle license purchase is required.

Also, cost for licensing is cheaper for Pro/INTRALINK 10.0 than PDMLink. Plus most existing PTC customers got the upgrade, 3.X to 9.x, free. Check with your sales rep.

BTW, I am still in a bit of a learning curve, so I may be a bit off myself. 😉

BenLoosli
23-Emerald II
(To:dbower1)

Bundled or not is a licensing issue. You still need to install Oracle (or SQLServer) to run any Windchill-based product - PDMLink or Intralink.


Thank you,

Ben H. Loosli
USEC, INC.

Thanks Miguel for the info.

We were told that our ProductPoint Licenses will be changed for Windchill
10 (PDMLink 10) for free. That's another confusing part about all of
this. I asked someone if it's Windchill 10 or should we be saying PDMLink
10 and Intralink 10. The answer was Windchill 10, but if that's true, how
could they be different? I was also told that the maintenance between
ProductPoint and Windchill 10 is not much of a difference in cost.

So I am bad confused and hope to get some answers at Planet PTC Live.

Anyone else going to that? I will be a Lone Ranger out there from Dallas
and would love to meet up with some folks.

Anyway, I don't have all the answers to my questions yet, but I sure hope
to get them soon. I need to get PDM/PLM Implemented ASAP and I don't have
time for all this confusion.


Damián Castillo
CAD & Administration Manager
Engineering Department
Hensley Industries
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